How to Make a Zombie: The Real Life (and Death) Science of Reanimation and Mind Control

by Frank Swain

Overview

Join a notorious pop science punk as he investigates real zombie reports from around the world. It's terrifying!

The search for the means to control the bodies and minds of our fellow humans has been underway for millennia, from the sleep-inducing honeycombs that felled Pompey’s army to the Voodoo potions of Haiti. Now, Frank Swain, the force behind Science Punk, has joined the quest, digging up genuine zombie research:

• dog heads brought back to life without their bodies

• secret agents dosing targets with zombie drugs

• parasites that push their hosts to suicide or sex changes

• the elixir of life hidden in an eighteenth-century painting

This mind-bending and entertaining excavation of incredible science is unlike anything you’ve read before.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781851689446
Publisher:	Oneworld Publications
Publication date:	06/01/2013
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Frank Swain is the founder of SciencePunk, the popular SEED ScienceBlogs site devoted to the weird and wonderful fringes of science. A regular contributor to media including Wired and the Guardian, he has a history of climbing buildings, managing burlesque shows, and generally being a force for good

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Zombie Recipe

1. Dead Men Working the Fields

2. Time for a Revival

3. Harvesting Humans

4. Mickey Finn and Other Thugs

5. Remote/Control

6. Ghouls and Nannies

7. Army of Bloodsuckers

Epilogue: Here and Now

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

Editorial Reviews

"Swain serves up a ghoulish treat — the real-life zombies of science and nature! Packed full of bizarre research and jaw-dropping tales, his book succeeds in being simultaneously entertaining, informative, and slightly unnerving, since it turns out that the zombies are, quite likely, you and I."

Alex Boese - bestselling author of Elephants on Acid and Electric Sheep

"Frank Swain's gripping book reads like a non-fiction version of a Stephen King novel — you'll stay up all night reading it with goose bumps and the lights on."

Scientific Michael Shermer - New York Times bestselling author of The Believing Brain and columnist

"Swain serves up a ghoulish treat - the real-life zombies of science and nature! Packed full of bizarre research and jaw-dropping tales, his book succeeds in being simultaneously entertaining, informative, and slightly unnerving, since it turns out that the zombies are, quite likely, you and I." Alex Boese, bestselling author of Elephants on Acid and Electric Sheep "Frank Swain's gripping book reads like a non-fiction version of a Stephen King novel - you'll stay up all night reading it with goose bumps and the lights on." Michael Shermer, New York Times bestselling author of The Believing Brain and columnist, Scientific American "From attempts to reanimate animals from death to mind control experiments and brain-hacking parasites, this delightfully macabre book explores the reality of zombie mythology. Science punk Frank Swain has pulled off a masterful feat in this broad-ranging and fascinating book. Braiiiins!" Lewis Dartnell, Research Fellow, University of Leicester, and author of Life in the Universe

From the Publisher

"From attempts to reanimate animals from death to mind control experiments and brain-hacking parasites, this delightfully macabre book explores the reality of zombie mythology. Science punk Frank Swain has pulled off a masterful feat in this broad-ranging and fascinating book. Braiiiins!"

Lewis Dartnell

"This is not a book about fictional zombies. This is a book about what happens to the zombie when it crawls off the page and out of the screen and into our world," writes SciencePunk founder Swain at the beginning of this thoughtful, colorful, slow poke through the world of zombiedom. The slow pacing works both for and against the stories, alternately bringing a good and ominous feel and then letting things drift a bit. But no one will nod off during this grand tour of sorcerers, necromancers, secret societies, and people who mess with brains and the black market in body parts. By zombies, Swain is not specifically referring to the characters who traipse around in tattered clothing with their hands raised in front of them. Rather, he wonders about those of us with the glazed, undead look, sometimes doing others' bidding in a violent manner, or especially, those who have been reanimated--brought back from the dead. To that end, Swain has a juicy cast of contenders responsible for such activities, and he presents them with point-by-point progress, leaving the facts to wow readers but providing both moody and electric atmosphere. The author explores the effects of keeping organisms--like humans--organically functioning after death (as eminent biologist J.B.S. Haldane said, "technique is everything"); the autojerker, which was more successful at delivering oxygenated blood than the teeter-totter, a seesaw device that tried to rock circulation back into action. Certainly, the unknowns are many, but the degree of scientific research into zombies will leave you agog--zombielike. In this enjoyable and authoritative text, Swain will have readers wondering exactly how many zombies they brushed past today.

Kirkus Reviews